The Politics of Implication: The Descendant of Perpetrators in Santanu Bhattacharya’s One Small Voice: An Observer

Abstract

The interest in historical injustice has introduced the issue of the ‘Implicated Subject,’ which breaks the binary of Perpetrator and the Victim. The implicated subject neither causes harm nor is a sufferer of violence; however, this subject fails to call out the perpetrator and thus becomes a beneficiary of violent history. The concept of ‘Implicated subject’ has received considerable attention in postcolonial studies, and their focus is primarily on structural and cultural violence. However, there are no comprehensive readings of ‘implicated subject’ in literary texts. This paper focuses on how the image of Secular India is challenged after the demolition of Babri Masjid, explores the implication of a child in the subsequent riots and critically examines the ‘self-reflexivity’ of the protagonist Shubhankar which exposes his narcissism in Santanu Bhattacharya’s One Small Voice: An Observer by using Michael Rothberg’s conceptualization of ‘Implicated subject’ and Michael Mann’s notion of ‘Ethnic cleansing’. This paper employs the method of textual analysis to examine the selected text. This research is relevant to social and cultural studies like human security, socio-environmental issues and management of change in a country.